Once upon a midnight nightmare, deep into the dead of shadows' glare,
A poet stood in the dim and flickering light.
Appeared before her in the moon's pallid sight,
A ghostly figure, draped in mist,
A reflection of a reality that didn't exist.
Its eyes hold the curse of every love she'd known,
Its whispers echoed the pain of the hearts withdrawn.
Shifting shape with every memory,
But its cold touch broke her reverie.
"Tell me, phantom, why you are here?
I have no wishes left and thus no fear."
The ghost mirrored her eyes with a look of sorrow,
Then it came its voice, icy and hollow,
"Ah, poet, why do you still yearn,
For a love's embers that never again burn?
Illusions of perfection sought, in a heart never truly caught."
As the specter taunted her soul, she saw her folly take its toll.
Chasing ghosts of love long gone, with a heart turned into stone, all alone.
Bitter truth then starkly clear, as she shed a silent shimmering tear.
Ghost of her past loves true, was haunting her present with shades of blue.
Deceit and lies, beneath the guise of loving eyes.
Each memory that left her shattered and torn
Had merged into that ghostly figure, an illusion born.
All the muses carved to perfection, were but figments of her imagination,
Made out of her dreams, her desires' concoction, her very own creation.
As she saw herself in the eyes of the specter,
She realized the love was lost and it was nothing but a reflector
Of her past and the dreams that didn't last.
She had been dwelling on the dream of this spectral muse, a nightmare posed as a dream with ruse, a way to escape the reality, a mere excuse.
Although in its haunting presence, she finally found her twisted truth that she loved the ghosts of her past and not the reality of youth.
Then she realized that the apparition of that love was gone and nothing more.
No longer should she chase illusions or embrace false conclusions.
For within those dark confusions, lied her truth forevermore.

© DawnS.M